George Spendlove was born in Montréal on 23 April 1897. Educated privately by tutors, he showed particular interest in art history. At the age of 19, he enlisted in the military during World War I and served in Europe, suffering a severe concussion that injured the nerves in his ears, leaving him with a hearing impairment that was to plague him the rest of his life. In 1919, he returned to Montréal but was unable to work for two years.
George Spendlove became a vital supporter of the Green Acre Bahá’í Summer School in Eliot, Maine. It was during one of his summer vacations spent teaching at the school that he met Dorothy G. Spurr of Sparkill, New York. They were married in 1929 and had two children, David and Dorothy Grace. After working as a fine arts dealer for several years, he sold his business and spent a year travelling across Palestine, India and the Far East. Between 1932 and 1933 Mr. Spendlove made the first of his two pilgrimages to Haifa. The year following his trip, he went to London to study Chinese archaeology at the Courtauld Institute of the University of London. On completion of this course, he was granted a post-graduate diploma in archaeology and was recommended to the Royal Academy to assist it in preparing its catalogue for the great International Exhibition of Chinese Art, shown at Burlington House in 1935. Mr. Spendlove had prepared himself to work with Chinese art by teaching himself to read the language. He played a substantial role in establishing the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom (the national governing council).
In November 1936, George Spendlove returned to Canada to join the staff of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, overseeing the Japanese and East Indian collections. After several years, he became the curator of the modern European collections and was appointed a special lecturer in the Department of Art and Archaeology at the University of Toronto. His final appointment at the Royal Ontario Museum came in 1952, as curator of the Canadiana collection. Spendlove’s first book, "The Face of Early Canada," published in 1958, is illustrated with pieces from this collection. A second book, "Collectors’ Luck," followed in 1960.
